Pope calls for fight against human trafficking

adminonNovember 2, 2021January 5, 2022Leave a Comment

Pope calls for fight against human trafficking

Pope Francis at the Angelus prayer © Angelo Carconi

Human trafficking is "modern-day slavery". This is what Pope Francis said at Sunday's Angelus prayer in Rome. He called for action against human trafficking on this Sunday, which is also UN World Day Against Human Trafficking.

His first trip as pope took Jorge Mario Bergoglio to the island of Lampedusa. The Argentinean wants to set an example against human trafficking. Almost exactly four years later, on the UN World Day against Trafficking in Persons, he took up the topic again at the Angelus prayer in Rome.

"Every year, thousands of men, women and children become innocent victims, exploited as labor or sexually, or victims of organ trafficking. I call once again for everyone's commitment so that this terrible scourge, a kind of modern slavery, can be effectively combated," the pope warned. "Let us ask the Virgin Mary to assist the victims of human trafficking and to convert the hearts of traffickers."

Have we become accustomed to human trafficking?

Human trafficking is "despicable" said the Pope and appealed to all forces in society to take action against this "modern form of slavery". Francis called not only for prayers for victims, but also for the conversion of traffickers.

The public seems so used to human trafficking that it is considered something normal, Francis criticized. "This is evil, this is cruel, this is criminal."

UN World Day against Trafficking in Persons

According to the United Nations, more than 20 million people worldwide suffer the consequences of human trafficking.

More than two-thirds of exploitation is due to forced prostitution, according to a statement from the refugee agency UNHCR. Seventy percent of victims are women and girls, and minors account for a quarter of the victims.

"Tip of the iceberg"

Caritas Europa also warned in this context of the consequences for the personality and the lives of those children who have become victims of human trafficking. Caritas Europa's human trafficking expert Genevieve Colas said the media reports about the missing refugee children were only the "tip of the iceberg". Urgent action is needed, says Colas. He said it is especially important to protect unaccompanied migrant minors.

German Family Minister Katarina Barley (SPD) campaigned for better protection of children and young people in Germany. "All forms of human trafficking aim to exploit people through criminal means. And human trafficking also exists here in Germany. Our goal is to identify and protect the victims and provide them with the necessary help and support," she stressed. Perpetrators must not be allowed to get away with their "criminal and inhuman activity".

Italy's head of state urges solidarity

Meanwhile, Italy's President Sergio Mattarella has again called for European solidarity in the refugee crisis. Trafficking gangs, although distinct from human traffickers under international law, also drive their victims into "circumstances of slavery," Mattarella said Sunday in Rome. Mattarella called trafficking in persons a "horrible and unacceptable crime". The international community cannot stand by and watch these tragedies in a cowardly manner. The fight against human trafficking must be conducted "with all the necessary energy" and across borders. The Italian head of state also called for cooperation and development to end the extreme poverty that drives people into the arms of unscrupulous criminals.

"No nation and no citizen can remain indifferent as long as even a single person is forced to live as a slave" said Mattarella. "In the Mediterranean, this commitment has much to do with the fight against the criminal gangs that operate the traffic of migrants and refugees."

The reconciliation meeting in Villavincencio, Colombia, was an urgent concern for the pope. "From the first day, I have longed for the moment of our meeting," he said of what was probably the most important encounter of his trip.

At a major reconciliation meeting in Villavicencio, Colombia, Pope Francis thanked victims and perpetrators of the civil war for their very personal testimonies. He was here to listen to people and learn from them, he said, visibly moved Friday afternoon (local time) in a park in the major city that was once an epicenter of the conflict.

Previously, at the celebration there, four people had reported the suffering they had experienced or also inflicted on others. An ex-guerrilla and a member of the paramilitaries reported from the perspective of the perpetrators; from the perspective of the victims, a mother of four after a guerrilla mine explosion, and a woman whose closest relatives were murdered by paramilitaries. They all reported how they try to cope, to forgive or to make atonement.

Tears in the hall

The pope's 34-minute address moved the four witnesses, as well as many listeners in the hall, to tears. As in the morning service, the afternoon service focused on the theme of reconciliation. In contrast to the previous Mass, representatives of other denominations and religions also took part here. Villavicencio Archbishop Oscar Urbina named examples of "the more than eight million victims" of decades of violence, 984.507 killed, 166.407 Disappeared, 16.340 murdered, 1.982 massacres, 35.092 Abducted, 19.684 Victims of sexual violence, 6.421 forced recruits as well as 12.000 people with amputations.

Francis admitted it was very difficult to break the cycle of hate, violence and counter-violence. But all are victims of this cycle, innocent and guilty alike. "There is hope even for those who have done evil," the Pope declared. But in the "regeneration process of the perpetrators", "justice must be done".

"Let's heal the pain"

Francis also addressed widespread skepticism about the peace process, saying it is "difficult to accept the change of those who have used cruel violence".

"Let us heal the pain and welcome every person who has committed crimes, confesses them, repents and commits to reparation," the pope said. However, he said, it is indispensable to do justice to the truth. This, of course, should not lead to revenge, but to sustainable reconciliation and forgiveness, he said.

Hate is not the last word

The celebration, which began with a staged and sung recital of the 85. Psalms (God's peace to his people) began, the "Cross of Bujaya" stood. In a bomb attack by FARC guerrillas on the village church on 2. May 2002, 86 people had been killed and many wounded. They had sought refuge in the church from fighting between guerrillas and paramilitaries. The body of the crucifix had both legs and both arms torn off at the time.

"To see Christ like this, mutilated and wounded, is a wake-up call to all of us," Pope said. "Broken and amputated" he shows "that he came to suffer for his people and with his people" and to teach "that hate does not have the last word, that love is stronger than death and violence.". At length, the Pope thanked the young people who recounted how they were recruited by the guerrillas and the woman whose husband and children were murdered one by one by paramilitaries. After each of the four testimonies, a candle was lit in front of the crucifix.

Pope blesses tree of reconciliation in Colombia

In a symbolic act, Pope Francis prayed in front of the "Cross of Reconciliation" in Villavicencio, Colombia. In the presence of President Juan Manuel Santos and his wife, he thus expressed his support for the peace process in the South American country on Friday afternoon (local time). The head of the Church from Argentina laid white flowers at the foot of the cross, whose pedestal bears the numbers of the victims of the armed conflict, and remained in silent prayer for a few minutes.

A "tree of peace" was also planted during the small ceremony. The pope passed the earth to two children; they were to symbolize the country's future without war and violence. The celebration was attended by 400 children as well as representatives of indigenous communities.

Franz Kaspar, the former vicar general of the Limburg diocese, is not given a good report card in the ecclesiastical audit report on the million-dollar Limburg bishop's residence. But there are also allegations elsewhere.

Kaspar has now also received poor marks for the first decade of his work as director of the Catholic facility for the handicapped Sankt Vincenzstift in Rudesheim-Aulhausen and in the neighboring Catholic youth facility Marienhausen. The results of a telephone survey presented on Thursday in Rudesheim in matters of violence and abuse in the for the time after 1970 incriminate him. Kaspar was director of the Vincenzstift from 1970 to 2006.

Violence and abuse incidents in the period from 1945 to 1970 had already been documented in a study presented by the foundation last September. It incriminated above all Kaspar's predecessor as foundation director, the clergyman Rudolf Mueller, as a perpetrator. He had run the Vincenzstift from 1958 until his suicide in 1970. That there were terrible crimes under its aegis was well known. But that there were also under Kaspar still some incidents, is only now reasonably certain evidence.

Clear data basis

People who had experienced or observed "incidents in connection with violence in any form" in the convent or in the Marienhausen Youth Welfare Center after 1970 could report via a hotline. The survey was led by Annerose Siebert, a professor at the Faculty of Social Work, Health and Care at Ravensburg-Weingarten University of Applied Sciences.

The data base is comparatively narrow, but nevertheless clear. A total of seven calls were received in three months: four former residents of the home, relatives and a former employee. They reported physical, sexual and psychological violence.

Overall, it can be concluded that there was a higher incidence of violence at the beginning of the 1970s, according to Siebert. Serious incidents had been cited for the period up to the early 1980s. According to the callers, Kaspar did not react appropriately to information about such incidents, said Siebert.

The managing director of Sankt Vincenzstift gGmbH, Caspar Solling, added that they were "saddened with everyone who came forward". What had happened then must never happen again. Soelling did not want to comment on Franz Kaspar himself. Possible that the shadow of the former vicar general is too long. Finally, Kaspar also headed the Wiesbaden-based commissariat of the Catholic bishops in the state of Hesse from 1979 to 2003. The institution, known as the Catholic Office for short, represents the interests of the church to the political authorities in the state capital.

Money from a fund for the Vincenzstift

Kaspar is a recipient of the Grand Cross of Merit of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany and the Hessian Order of Merit, among others. In addition, he was awarded the "Brotteller", the highest award of the German Caritas Association, and the title of "Honorary Professor" at the University of Frankfurt was also not withheld from him. The name Benedikt Degen finally found its way into modern German literature. In Martin Walser's 1996 novel "Fink's War" about a political intrigue with an ecclesiastical background, the head of the Wiesbaden Catholic Office is called this.

As the weekly newspaper "Die Zeit" (Thursday) now reports, Kaspar used money from a fund for the Vincenzstift to make art purchases. Some of the purchased objects he had placed in his private apartment. The fact that this is true, had already confirmed Vincenzstift boss Solling long ago to the "Wiesbadener Kurier". Since 2010, the Vincenzstift, which has also operated the Marienhausen youth home since 1991, has belonged to the Cologne-based Josefs-Gesellschaft. Franz Kaspar was also chairman of the supervisory board of this organization, which operates several facilities for disabled people throughout Germany, for 28 years.

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